


Ex, Post Facto

by SegaBarrett



Category: Hill Street Blues
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: The one day that Faye doesn't come to the station with a problem, and Frank gets a little worried.





	Ex, Post Facto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Hill Street Blues, and I make no money from this. 
> 
> A/N: Set after the end of S3.

It hadn’t been like this when they had been married, Frank was sure of it. And “this” meant that he suddenly knew things about his ex-wife that he had never known before and, quite frankly (if you pardoned the pun), had never wanted to know.

Their relationship hadn’t been exactly a whirlwind one – it had been a practical marriage, and those change over time and fade away into a comfort level that people can either choose to live with or without.

But this was something new.

He had asked Faye about her day when they had been together, and she would shrug and dismiss and ask him in turn, and he would say it had all been fine and then it was off to the next thing that needed to be done. 

Now, it wasn’t truly a day at Hill Street Station if Faye didn’t burst in and tell him something that he could not predict and would be worried if he did. 

Today, however, so far had been quiet. In fact, it had been quiet to the point that Frank was beginning to feel worry creep up his spine, unbidden. 

What could Faye be up to, that she wasn’t in here launching into one of her complaints? Could she have gotten arrested again? Maybe she was out with the swingers again. Why did he know about these things?

He waited for the phone to ring, starting a brisk pace back and forth. This was ridiculous – what happened to no news being good news?

And when had Faye’s visits begun to mean as much to him as Joyce’s, in their own way?

Maybe, he would pick up the phone and call her. Just to check up on Frank Jr., of course. That would be a normal reason to call. Not because he missed her, not because he kind of wanted to hear whatever crazy thing she would hit him with next.

Not because the absence of Faye made him oddly lonely.

***

Despite himself, he drove by Faye’s house during his lunch break. It was funny how someone who was so very frustrating when she was there could elicit panic in him… He figured he wouldn’t pursue that line of thought too far, because there was no good place it could lead.

He noticed that her car was parked in the driveway; that was a good sign, wasn’t it? With Faye, it was hard to tell what was a good sign and what wasn’t.   
With trepidation, he parked on the street and walked up the walkway to her house, knocking and letting out a sigh. She was probably just busy with the new baby. New baby – Frank still couldn’t believe that development. How had she decided to pull that one off?

Maybe it was a good thing, though. Faye was certainly a good parent, though he felt for anyone at the Parent-Teacher Conferences. Maybe he would go to the next one instead. 

Then again, there’d probably be three murders to be solved on his desk that day. 

Frank rang the bell and stepped back with a sigh. 

A moment later the door burst open, and Faye was standing there with her hands on her hips.

“Frank! What are you doing here? You interrupted me breastfeeding. You know it takes a long time for the baby to latch, and…”

“…No, Faye, I don’t know that,” Frank replied dryly, attempting to erase any mental images going along with the disclosure. “I’m sorry to interrupt, however. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay… I hadn’t heard from you.”

“What, now I need to report to you every day, Big Man?”

Frank let out a small sigh.

“I can go, you know. I’ll just go. I’m glad you’re okay, Faye.”

He turned, readying himself to walk out the door. 

“Frank!” 

He turned his head back, wondering about how this always managed to happen. 

“Yes, Faye?”

“You don’t have to walk out right away, you know. You could stay for dinner. Or lunch. Or… brunch, I don’t know. Do people actually do brunch? Maybe we should be people who do brunch, Frank. Those type of people are really going somewhere.”

Frank flipped over his wrist to look at his watch.

“Four o’clock. We could do a late lunch… I guess.”

“Good, because I made kielbasa.”

Frank shrugged. He couldn’t really complain about the possibility of kielbasa, if he was being completely honest with himself.

“So… how have… you been?” he inquired, despite the fact that he had seen her only yesterday and, asked or not, she was going to no doubt tell him all about whatever had transpired before he had arrived on her doorstep. His old doorstep. Their doorstep? It all seemed like a world away, now.

“You know how I’ve been, Frank. I’ve been lousy. Not a moment’s rest.”

“With the baby?”

“Not just that! You will not believe what the neighbors are up to – they’re all crazy, Frank. Downright crazy. This man next door, he was running a drill at 7:30 in the morning. I nearly went over to tell him that I was about to drill it into his head.”

Frank sighed and then ventured, “Faye… You didn’t.”

“…Maybe I did.” She wrung her hands. “And maybe he did say something about calling the police and having a restraining order put on me. But you can’t just let people walk all over you, Frank! You get it, don’t you?”

And of course he did.

***

They had been divorced for a week when she had gotten into a knock-down, drag-out battle with the man who was supposed to fix the roof on their backroom.  
Frank was in limbo, populating his barren apartment while still having most of his things scattered around the house. He was wondering with each trip why people even bothered to get divorced – moving was bad enough, a little Hell in and of itself, but moving after a divorce was something out of the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno.

On this particular day, he was trying to figure out how to transport a toadstool his parents had given him as a wedding gift. He was also wondering why he was even attached to this stupid thing. The marriage hadn’t lasted and he barely talked to either of his parents anymore.

Maybe it was a way for him to feel as if he had won something in all of the chaos. At least he had a stupid toadstool to show for it.

He had it on a dolly and was pulling it towards the door when he heard it.

“You listen here, Mister! I’ll slug you if I have to!”

He tilted his head to the side and listened, waiting to jump in if he had to .(But why?, a little voice asked. He wasn’t married to her anymore. This wasn’t his house anymore. But here he was standing, rather than going to the van with his salmon and beige piece of useless furniture.)

“You get right back up there and you seal up that roof right now Mister. I’m not taking any guff from you, and you aren’t going to charge me one more cent for this hatchet job. You get up there and make sure it’s done right.”

And Frank smiled sadly as he pushed the dolly right on out the door.

***

“What are you staring at, Frank? Your eyes are about to fall out of your head. The kielbasa’s gonna get cold if we don’t eat it soon, you know.”

Frank found himself sitting in a wooden chair in the dining room, feet flung out and hitting something underneath the table. 

A toadstool.

He cut open his kielbasa and marveled at the way the house had grown around him, the way it had changed to fit a whole new family. The way things could scatter and grow like dandelion seeds scattered in a child’s game, without rhyme or reason.

They sat and talked for an hour before he went back home again.

***

The next morning, he arrived at work to find Faye already waiting for him, hand flung on her hip and staring at him with a glare that could quell Vesuvius. 

“I’m going to need to make a report. This moron cut off my car this morning as I was pulling into the parking lot. I was only going five over the speed limit and here comes this genius, with his middle finger hanging out the window with some big ol’ grin like he’s king of the hill, can you believe that?”

“Did you get the license plate?”

Faye grinned.

“You know I did.”

Frank let out a long sigh. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. And he was slowly realizing that he was okay with that.


End file.
